“I met colleagues who do their work despite the war, danger, huge economic problems,” Anna Del Freo on her trip to Ukraine

Anna Del Freo, the vice president of the Lombardy Union of Journalists (LUJ, Italy), visited Ukraine and assured Ukrainian journalists of solidarity with them.

The message/motto of the President of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU), Sergiy Tomilenko, is Journalists Are Important!

Under this title, the LUJ published the story of Anna Del Freo, who is also a member of the executive committee of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), about her visit to Ukraine.

“Journalists paid a high price for covering the war in Ukraine. Currently, 72 colleagues are known to have been killed. Fifteen Ukrainian and foreign media workers were killed while doing their work; others became civilian victims or were killed fighting at the front,” the post reads.

Anna Del Freo spoke about her numerous meetings with Ukrainian colleagues, representatives of the NUJU, and NUJU’s Journalists’ Solidarity Centers (JSC). The Italian media woman highly appreciated the work of the JSCs, which, at the beginning of the war, organized the reception of journalists and their families forced to flee from the most dangerous and occupied territories of Ukraine. Then, the JSCs helped them as working space and, therefore – provided many with journalistic work tools (computers and smartphones), helped in receiving psychological help.

The Italian colleague visited Ivano-Frankivsk, Kyiv, and Chernihiv. She assured Ukrainians of the support and readiness of the LUJ to activate new projects of solidarity with the NUJU. “It is important to see how journalists never give up and try to continue their work even in extreme conditions,” said Anna Del Freo, addressing Ukrainian journalists.

The LUJ vice-president, together with the NUJU President, Sergiy Tomilenko, visited the exhibition prepared by the NUJU and held in the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War. This exhibition tells about journalists who suffered as a result of russian aggression.

“Many colleagues were kidnapped, imprisoned, and even tortured by the russian occupiers because they were doing their job. Such journalists’ belongings are presented at the exhibition. Among the journalists the exhibition talks about is my colleague Alina Komarova. She has been the photo editor of the Mariupol newspaper Pryazovskyi Robochyi for 25 years. She was a war journalist and did photo sessions at the front. In March 2022, she miraculously managed to escape from the besieged Mariupol. Among them is also journalist Dmytro Khyliuk, who was kidnapped by the russians in the Kyiv Region on March 4, 2022, and deported to a russian colony in the Vladimir Oblast. To this day, the russian authorities deny that he had been detained and that legal proceedings against him are underway. Or 70-year-old Oleksandr Hunko, who stayed in the Kherson Region occupied by russia for six months and was kidnapped, interrogated, and tortured several times: the occupiers even forced him to record an interview useful for their propaganda. He finally managed to leave and continues his work.”

The most vivid memory of Chernihiv for Anna Del Freo was a visit to the regional drama theater, where a russian missile hit (and badly damaged the theater) a month ago. At a meeting with journalists, Anna Del Freo emphasized that the LUJ and the EFJ will always be close to the NUJU and journalists.

“I learned a great lesson,” said Anna Del Freo. “I met colleagues who do their work despite everything: war, danger, huge economic problems. And many of them are also volunteers who help the civilian population in whatever way they can!”